by Mark de Jong

Created on: February 11, 2007   Last Updated: April 16, 2010

Rastafari is a socio-philosophical off-shoot from Christianity that originated in the wake of Jamaican slavery. Today it is a philosophical corollary to the Christian faith. A brief indroduction:

"Preacher man, dont tell me heaven is unda de earth'....now we see the light, and we stand up for our rights."
-Bob Marley

The Rasta is seen as a a simple man, a poor man, a black man; this is a narrow view. The Rastafari worldview articulates a highly intuitive analysis of the western world, and of the human condition. Forged in the wake of slavery, it is a faith rife with mythological imagery and symbolic meaning. And yet at the core there lies an enlightened insight; a countercultural manifesto for the procurement of true life and restoration of the human condition.

Collaborative unfortunate circumstances and widespread apathy are the arbiters of the soi-disant "downpression," which in the Rasta lexicon means "oppression." It is the understanding of the Rasta that the collective oligarchy of "isms and skisms" have infiltrated socialization to the degree of a self-imposed, quasi-Orwellian sort of Newspeak. This is the backdrop to the formation of the Rasta cultural lexicon, whose myriad spins on buzzwords seek to illuminate the true state of the human condition and open up a more intimate avenue for communication, and connection.
Marx called religion 'the opiate of the masses.' A Rasta point of view would clarify this notion, and reveal that the institutionalized church is what poses a threat to perpetuate downpression and facilitate apathy - not that religion is intrinsically without merit, but rather that its misappropriation is.

With this analysis comes a deep call for mankind to accept his true identity, and the idea that this state is the true realization of heaven (Zion) here on earth. Bob Marley makes reference to the widespread delusion that heaven is under the earth,' which creates complacency to pacify the masses (both the wealthy from helping the poor, and the poor from helping themselves) with false hope; the belief that as excruciating life can be, if we grit and bear it we will reach paradise after death. This stops us from asking why we can't have heaven now in the first place. There is too much complacent and passive good nature in the world that is unwilling or unable to pass the tipping point in order to uproot the tyranny of power, pride, and greed.

Mankind has been blessed by the lives of many great prophets, and I am divergent, as an intellectual, to align with the commonly-held Rasta myth which ascribes deity to the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I. This would seem to be another article of metaphorical significance. Regardless of who is or is not divine, there have been highly enlightened human beings who are well revered for their insights; Buddha, Jesus, Selassie, Garvey, Marley, DuBois, Martin Luther King, Gandhi. If we examine what these people actually said, we would spend less time celebrating their exceptional divergences from ourselves, and begin to recognize our similarities for a starting point on the path of a life-journey to incorporate our enlightenment into our living. These people have discovered and shared truth, and have described a more natural, and ultimately fulfilling path that we need to ascribe to.

When we unite in our humanity to stop deluding ourselves, we will see the light; we will stand up for our rights.

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